"who labelled the provocative billboard "appalling" and said it demeaned the holiness and meaning of Christmas." Oh give me a break! - Sofia Gkiousou
As a strictly non-religious person, I say; "Hell yeah that's offensive". It's not like it's challenging creationism or anything, it's just needlessly offensive to a lot of people for no good reason. - Sean
Sean this is just all too politically correct for my taste. sorry. - Sofia Gkiousou
As a Christian, I'll say my jaw dropped, then I chuckled, and then I thought. Probably what they were going for. I wasn't offended, but I can see how people would be. And I'll agree with Sean that it does seem needless and pointless. - Ladybug Heather
Considering how "christmas" has been an marketing ploy for who knows how long now.. its got less about christ than ever... I am not religious, but but even if i was, i doubt it would offend me. Whats "Tui"? Is that a company or something over there? - Rob Sellen
Several things could be offensive to different people (discussing what is offensive or not leads to quite hypocritical and contradictory conclusions). I would comment it's good enough to attract attention, thus meeting it's purpose as an ad. - Cωνσtantίnoς
That's true... controversy works for getting attention... as prooved here. ;o) - Rob Sellen
That's hilarious! Ah, Tui. Did it again... - kirsten
IMO, it's a condescending remark and that's offensive. - MikeAmundsen
As a Christian, I took it as a way of saying Christmas has lost its meaning, which is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. However, I can truly see why some would be offended. I am not. True intentions and emotions are not always express properly in writing, but in this case maybe so because here we are talking about it. On the other hand, this is coming from a beer company. - Valley
ah..beer... lol.. :o) Smart marketing if you ask me... - Rob Sellen
"He came off as more bearish than Roubini last night in this latest Charlie Rose interview, and advocates only putting on "bi-modal" trades where you use a small percentage of capital to place "black swan" type option bets on out of the money strikes, so to speak. But he has kept lots of dry powder, 80%-90% in cash and equivalents, at the remainder in risky investments. He does not like "medium risk" investments, because they probably are higher risk than you think." - Paul Buchheit
via Bookmarklet
interesting guy, probably over the crest now with what his contribution is .. cannot see the new when i read him, only what was wrong with the old - Gregory Lent
Gregory, what do you see as the new? - Chris White
complete shift in the definition of what is valuable .. quantifications developed for entirely different categories of human activity .. what is "economic" taking into account social costs, externals, etc .. an understanding of the naturalness of cycles and the effects of group consciousness on entire systems .. and some basic grandmother stuff, like greed doesn't pay, that morality and ethics have strategic value .. less emphasis on competition, more whole systems, whole planet thinking, the role of ego as - Gregory Lent
Gregory, I like your ideals, but I would bet against that. Can't remember either of my grandmothers saying greed doesn't pay. - Chris White
paradigm shift, the current system is toxic, and is falling apart as a result .. time for the new ... and it is coming .. nature insists :-) ... and hyperconnectivity enforces transparency and equal distribution of information and opportunity ... we really are entering a new kind of functioning ... morality and greed have strategic value, is another discovery/requirement of one-world realities - Gregory Lent
Greed and lust make the world go round. :) - Chris White
fear and greed .. it is just that they have become suicidal, so simple selfishness dictates that we become a bit more selfless .. it is gradual, will play out the rest of our lives, but we will see a big jump in the next three or four years, sort of like the late 60's early 70's started so many of the memes we now are perfecting, ecology, recycling, gender and race equality, healthy food, mass communications. etc etc ... - Gregory Lent
"Top Queries of 2008 related to "Ninjas Are..." ninjas are there ninjas are everywhere ninjas are better ninjas are awesome ninjas are sexy Are we witnessing a quiet but steady ninja takeover? Should pirates be taking to the seas? Only time will tell." - AJ Kohn
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Ninjas. I think it's pretty weird that Google's Offical Blog isn't using GoogleConnect. - Shevonne Polastre
@Shevonne: Good point! I wonder if the Google staff changes include some re-org to address their uber-silo structure. Sometimes it seems like the right hand doesn't even know the left exists much less what it's doing. - AJ Kohn
"Those scared off by the "jumble of coding mixed with plain English paragraphs" in Wikipedia's entry edit forms should feel reassured by updates to the interface — thanks to a $890,000 grant from the Stanton Foundation. A five-person team will use the money to identify what aspects of the editing process intimidate users that could otherwise make valuable article contributions. It shall also "hide" technical elements irrelevant to contributors, writes the Associated Press." - AJ Kohn
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Do we *really* want to make it easier to edit Wiki entries? In some ways, the current interface is a filter of sorts that might keep numbskulls from overwhelming Wiki like they do on many other social sites, forums etc. - AJ Kohn
"You can now initiate payments via twitter. For example, tweeting "p @ev $1 because twitter is fun" would send $1 from your Tipjoy account to @ev." - Paul Buchheit
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So, how discrete is it? Everytime I send money, the whole world sees it, or works like d? - Nikos Anagnostou
Easier way! Wish it be an alternative to service like paypal. - K.D.
Nikos, it appears that you can set the visibility. I'm experimenting with it right now. http://bit.ly/BH5n Seems like an interesting concept but I wonder how much one can actually earn. It looks like top sites have gotten just over $100. But I did see Techcrunch with $629. - Jauder Ho
micropayments are totally the future, they will support blogs, twitter, many many things ... asia is waaaayyy ahead on this, but in america the credit card companies pose a problem, their cost of transaction is toooooooo high - Gregory Lent
@Nikos It isn't private yet, but soon we'll parse d messages like 'd username p $5' which the recipient will receive as a DM. @Jauder most of TC's tips came from our other widgets: http://tipjoy.com/banners - Ivan Kirigin
And how hard would it be to just give the user the choice as to how it looks? - James D Kirk
It's just a case of getting used to it. I think. I didn't like it originally but it does grow on a person - Paul Sharrock
via IM
I was quite disappointed about the change as well. - trextor
Ugh -- not a fan either. Much like with the stink I raised over the iGoogle shift a while back, I'm not sure why they can't give us an option here, as James said above. - JR R.
I was happy with the old one. Don't much like the new look even though it is a subtle change. Wish they would put a "change back to old view" like Yahoo does. - Jeff P. Henderson
I like it, except the line items need to go back to their smaller size. - Jordan Hofker
Just seems like change for change's sake. The look isn't an improvement on the previous style. It's too washed-out now. Bring back the colored background for the left column at least. - Rowan Hanna
some themes can be added just as what had been done with Gmail. - pestwave
Missing the old google reader. We had just gotten to know eachother well. We were vibing. - Ebm
I like the new GReader... nice and clean... - Aad 't Hart
I think it's neater. Is it faster or am I just a big enthousiast ? - Genaro Bardy
via twhirl
i didn't even notice the change, and I spend a LOT of time in my reader - William Harryman
My reader on the iPhone is messed up. The lines don't wrap. I tried clearing the cache but no luck. This happening to anyone else? - Brian Newman
I liked it at first, but that wore off quickly - Shey
the overly bold text is grating to me... my whole left column is nearly all bold - Nathan Chase
yeah... be nice if we can have own themes like in gmail :o) - Rob Sellen
iPhone version needs to be fixed but the new version looks great in my browser. Not sure what "soft and feminine" is supposed to mean. I just have more white. Same palette different combination. For the "tough guys" out there, request themes from Google. The optimization of real estate is something I have been wanting them to do for the longest time. Finally. My content is taking up more of the screen and my subscription list is now pushed all the way down anymore thanks to collapsing boxes. Good stuff. - Rolf Schewe
"How did the citizenship rumor get started? Ironically, it began when the Obama campaign tried to debunk some other conspiracies. After Obama locked up the nomination in early June, low-level talk radio and blog chatter peddled rumors that Obama's real middle name was Muhammad, that his father was not really Barack Obama, and that he was not really born in Hawaii. The campaign released a facsimile of Obama's certificate of live birth. Requested from the state in 2007, the certificate reported that Obama was, indeed, born in Honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961. The certificate was a bullet that didn't put down the horse." - Paul Buchheit
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Obama is a proxy for more bad government, and was / is a "trojan horse" as a candidate. I was one of the many who thought he was better than Hillary. Now it's not so clear. The lies about his birth, and his forged selective service compliance document shows the lack of compunction to do whatever it takes to maintain control by the elites who are responsible for covering up what happened on 9/11, and controlling what is basically a "shadow govt." in the US. - bill giltner
I love the fringe elements that FF somehow attracts. - Christopher Sacca
Christopher. I understand well that many, possibly 99% of those reading this will think I qualify for the nut house. For those who don't, please join this room: http://friendfeed.com/rooms/9-... - bill giltner
on evidence since the election, primarily his appointments, i'm with bill - Gregory Lent
The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology is calling for the next Doctor Who to be a woman, in order to inspire girls to take up careers in science (and time-lording). - Geoff Schultz
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I get and appreciate the idea but doesn't the lore indicate that Time Lord gender is inherently static? - Soup
This seems so needless - especially when there have been plenty of female Time Lords in the past. While the current canon would make including one difficult, there's no reason they couldn't write one in again. I'd be pushing for that more than anything else. - Jennifer Dittrich
Ok, but is this just to make a point and no other reason? - Mo Kargas
I thought the show had pretty much put him in more bodies than time lords are supposed to have. - MiɳiMagɘ (AlwaysMiniMage)
@Mo, It's not just to make a point - according to the article they want the next Doctor to be a woman because the series is already so popular it might inspire young girls to consider the sciences (although personally I have seen the doctor do very little 'science'). I think it's just an idea more than anything, really, which isn't surprising given the BBCs tendency to encourage the audience to assist in selecting the next Doctor (although the suggestions are likely never taken I'd suspect) - Soup
Why not just make a spinoff of his daughter that was born last season. - Geoff Schultz
Geoff- I think that could be kinda cool, actually. - Karin Dalziel
"In a sign of the economic times, Harvard has sent a letter to its deans saying that the university’s $36.9 billion endowment fund lost 22 percent of its value in the last four months and could decline as much as 30 percent by the end of the fiscal year on June 30." - Atul Arora
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"Watching her take the pistol from her belt, unbutton her jeans and slip into bed I somehow couldn’t quite equate the woman in my arms with the bodies I had seen in the local morgue, their heads shattered by gunshots at close range, murders she confessed to having committed. High on a combination of the heady tropical climate, local rum, grade A cocaine and in the arms of nubile 22-year-old, fantasy and reality became blurred. It felt like I was living in a Quentin Tarantino movie." - Paul Buchheit
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Great story, and for someone with such a short attention span I'm glad I stuck with it. - Toby Graham
"“When I killed the first person, I was afraid, I was scared. I killed the first person just to see if I could. But there is an obligation to kill. If you don’t, they kill you. That’s why the first was very hard, because the person I killed was kneeling down begging, crying and saying, ‘Don’t kill me. I have children.’ That’s why it was difficult and sad. But if you don’t kill that person, someone else from the AUC will kill you. After the killing, you keep trembling. You can’t eat or talk to anyone. I was at home, but I kept imagining the person begging not to be killed. I shut myself inside, but with time I forgot everything. The superiors always say, ‘Don’t worry, that was just the first time. When you kill the second one, it will all be OK.’ But you keep trembling.
“The second time is only a bit easier, but as they say here, ‘If you can kill one, you can kill many more.’" - bob
It's actually slightly misleading as it just does a site:sfgate.com on Google. When I first saw it I thought that it would send you to their site using OpenSearch or something. Searching Google is probably better though since most sites don't have good search of their own. - Paul Buchheit
Judging by http://googleblog.blogspot.com... it's "when [Google] detect[s] a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site. Like the rest of [Google's] snippets, the sites that display the site search box are chosen algorithmically based on metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users." Not that that explains much of the how. - Scott from Canada
google is sure getting clutter and featureitis - i dont want all these gimmicks i just want a good efficient search. Not getting it anymore. - Joelle Nebbe
"As for social disruption, Hanauer gave a quick summary of what he meant: —If everyone thinks it’s a great idea, it probably sucks. —If people understand it, you’re too late. —If people don’t like it and don’t understand it, it probably still sucks. So entrepreneurship is a dangerous field, he said. “The difference between being an idiot and being a genius is very, very thin.”" - Paul Buchheit
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Just because some one has most of their body tattoed doesn't mean the person has problems. That's putting a streotype on a person, or trying to label the person because of how they look which our society does a lot unfortunately. I mean I could look at any one of you and make very incorrect judgements about what I see, how you act towards me. Even judging how rich or poor you based on how much stuff you do or don't have and the truth is I could be very very wrong. - Colide81 (James)
i agree with Collide. while this guy has a rap sheet and all, there's lots of people who are covered with tattoos and happen to be some of the nicest, smartest and worldliest people i've known. - Cee Bee
He'll look great in nursing home, when (or if) he gets old. - Jemm
The pentagram on the forehead is a nice touch. - Mike Doeff
omg a bow tie tattoo on a guy with a huge pentagram on his forehead wtf - Toby Graham
Well what did the guy look like? Would you be able to pick him out in a lineup? - Ian D. Nock
